Had me a baby a week ago! Mallory was born at 0635 on February 7th. I developed preeclampsia and was going into HELLP syndrome so I was induced. The Pitocin sucked rear end but luckily my labor was only 3.5-4 hours long so I was still able to do it without an epidural. Minimal tearing too!

She is the greatest thing ever and I'm enjoying every sleepless minute with her!

My only real issues are the fact that my preeclampsia still hasn't completely resolved and I'm not producing enough milk yet so Mal has yet to regain any weight she has lost. I try to supplement with formula but she will have none of it. She absolutely will not drink it...so my OB prescribed some Reglan to help stimulate my own supply. Hopefully with a bit of pumping I can get this girl the calories she needs to grow. Not being able to supply your own child with the food she needs is a very disheartening feeling.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys, I'll have to take a look into any slings or something where I can wear her. Appreciate the help, I've never had a kid before, nor have I ever really babysit anybody so this is all 100% new to me.

Mangue posted:

Had me a baby a week ago! Mallory was born at 0635 on February 7th. I developed preeclampsia and was going into HELLP syndrome so I was induced. The Pitocin sucked rear end but luckily my labor was only 3.5-4 hours long so I was still able to do it without an epidural. Minimal tearing too!

Congratulations! I love the name. I hope you get better soon.

Where do I start when looking for breast pumps? I'm not bothered about getting a totally fancy one, but is it worth the extra money to go electric? I will probably only use it for a couple of feeds a week, but I want something that's going to be comfortable. Are they as scary as they look?

netally posted:

Where do I start when looking for breast pumps? I'm not bothered about getting a totally fancy one, but is it worth the extra money to go electric? I will probably only use it for a couple of feeds a week, but I want something that's going to be comfortable. Are they as scary as they look?

I would consider waiting until after you've had your baby to figure out what you need. I just had mine a week and a half ago and purchased a fairly cheap manual pump since I wasn't planning on going back to work. The baby had other ideas about breastfeeding, so we ended up renting a hospital-grade one so that I could pump while we are working with him on getting to the breast. While it looks scary, it's not really that bad and has lots of adjustment for the suction.

Welp, today is my due date and I don't think anything is going to happen. Last doctors appointment, we were told the baby was still above my pubic bone and hadn't dropped yet. Have another appointment tomorrow and we'll see where we're at. I was told to walk as much as possible, which I did on Friday, but then I came down with an awful cold that's just letting up today, so haven't taken long walks much.

Worst comes to worse, if the baby doesn't move down, we will have to do a c-section. However, I wouldn't want to do that until the 42nd week if possible. I guess it all depends on the amniotic fluid levels and all that.

If we DO go that route, the 42nd week starts on February 29th, leap day! Which I think is an awesome day to do it!

So, I have another gross, TMI sort of question. Anyone know if it's generally okay to take baths (or otherwise submerge in water) or have intercourse after losing the mucus plug? I had thought, quite mistakenly, that the mucus plug doesn't come out until late in pregnancy and shortly before labor, so I haven't brought it up yet with my OB. I lost mine last night and have yet to hear back from the OB's office, everything I see online gives me a different answer, and no one I can ask this question in person even remembers losing their plug.

I was told you can have sex until the water breaks. Since a lot of women don't even realize they've lost their mucus plug, I imagine they do have sex after it's gone, so I'm going to say it should be fine, as long as your water hasn't broken.

Definitely still okay to have sex! You're thinking about when your water breaks. After your water breaks, the amniotic sac is open to contamination and infection. Your mucus plug has nothing to do with that. Most doctors recommend both sex and baths this late in pregnancy. Go for it.

Also, question: My newborn (4 weeks now) is starting to have much longer awake periods. She doesn't cry much but I feel like she gets bored. She babbles at me when she's sitting doing nothing for more than three minutes. I mean, there's not much she can DO right now. And there's only so long I can bounce and wiggle and swing and sing to her before I go nuts. How do you entertain your babies?

Sarsaparilla fucked around with this message at Feb 16, 2012 around 03:07

What my doctor told me is that if I was GBS positive, I shouldn't be in a tub after my water breaks due to infection risk but if I'm GBS negative I could labor in the tub at home after my water breaks for several hours. Losing your mucus plug doesn't really seem to mean anything, as far as anything I remember reading.

Tesla Insanely Coil fucked around with this message at Feb 16, 2012 around 03:05

I lost my plug last weekend, and asked my midwife about it at my appointment yesterday. Her attitude was that it didn't really mean anything, it just shows that the cervix is getting itself ready. I've never heard of the not having baths thing before!

Thanks for the quick answers! Wound up seeing my OB anyway and found that I am 4cm dilated and pretty much fully effaced at only 34 weeks so my questions may not be relevant too much longer. Meanwhile I'm in L&D being monitored so fingers crossed.

Fire In The Disco posted:

Check your local Craigslist for a Moby or another wrap. They're reasonably cheap new as far as baby carriers go, so you should be able to get a used one inexpensively (there are like 6 or 7 on my local Craigslist for $20-25 right now, and they retail for $45-ish). And then there are tons of YouTube videos to teach you how to wrap with it.

The only issue with stretchy wraps like that is by the time the baby's a certain weight they stop being as useful. If you want a carrier that will last a lot longer, look into getting a mei tai, Ergo or Beco used. They're going to cost more, but they will also last longer.

I loooove my woven wrap! So that's another option too. Structured carriers hurt my shoulders. I think my shoulders slope a bit more than most people, so weight distributes differently. Wraps are easier on them.

I cannot change the gender of my unborn child and shouldn't waste my time or energy pretending he won't exist

Yeah, I should add that I use a gauze wrap and absolutely adore it. I know the stretchy wraps are convenient for a lot of people because you can pop the baby in and take him out without removing the wrap, but the warmth factor-- I live in the desert-- really mattered a lot to me, so I went with gauze because it's cooler. I'm actually looking forward to using it again in a few months!

I'm a big fan of Wrapsody wraps (http://www.wrapsodybaby.com/) They're very well-made. They're stretchy and breathable, whereas most wraps are one or the other. They're also long enough to do a number of different styles of wrapping, and can hold a toddler as easily as a baby. They all come with an instructional DVD, which was a godsend to me. Mimicking someone is much easier than trying to follow directions, when it comes to crossing this over that shoulder and tying this under the kid's butt, etc.

The biggest downsides are cost (mine was $79) and the wraps take a bit of time to learn.

So my wife and I found out last week that she was pregnant. So this morning we go in and have her first ultrasound and right off the bat there are two sacks visible. We were prepared for this as she had been on chlomid to help us get to this point. As the tech is documenting the second baby, a third pops up on the screen!

So it looks like we're going to have triplets. I think we're still trying to wrap our heads around this.

orinth posted:

So my wife and I found out last week that she was pregnant. So this morning we go in and have her first ultrasound and right off the bat there are two sacks visible. We were prepared for this as she had been on chlomid to help us get to this point. As the tech is documenting the second baby, a third pops up on the screen!

So it looks like we're going to have triplets. I think we're still trying to wrap our heads around this.

Oh wow! Congratulations! That must have been so awesome to see!

On my side of things, this baby is being an rear end. He basically hasn't moved yet, still not dropped. I am 40 weeks, 1 day. Stage -4, no dilation AT ALL, and cervix is still high.

A bit irritated when I heard that but the doctor had a long discussion with us about where we go from here. Basically, our doctor doesn't like to go past 41 weeks because the longer the kid stays in, the worse it is for the baby. I've read studies corresponding to this.

Anyhow, because the baby is stage -4, we can try induction and don't have to jump straight to c-section. This is great! So the doctor set up an appointment for next Wednesday, the 22nd. He'll check me then and either do induction that day or the next, depending on how busy the maternity ward is at the time.

Husband and I are completely okay with this. I wanted to wait at least an extra week to see if things go naturally, but if they don't, it's nice to know we have an end date now, instead of things being up in the air. The only downside to this is if I have to be induced, it's going to be at the hospital I don't want to deliver in. It's not a crappy hospital per se, but the one I DO want to labor in is a world renowned teaching hospital and is awesome. However, it's not in my HMO's network, so I can't go there for procedures. I was hoping to go into labor naturally and then just drive to the nice hospital because they can't turn you away if you're in true labor and your insurance has to cover it. At least in California, anyhow.

So yeah, that's where I'm at. Doing walking and sex to try to move things along!

So, I'm at 38w5d. I have very mild GD (manageable by a walk after dinner) and I've been heavily monitored this pregnancy because my last one ended via c-section a month early due to unresolvable hypertension. I've been fine this time with a bit of medication.

It was all going well! My doctor was on board with VBAC and the baby had dropped properly.

Then, Monday. She inspected me, sighed, and said not only was my cervix still closed tight, the baby had undropped. Apparently he's bouncing around. Furthermore, this is supposedly a huge baby.

So she said we'd do another sizing ultrasound on this next Monday and check for progression and then, unless signs were propitious, Something Would Be Done.

I have been vaguely assuming that if they decide the baby needs to come out, it would be scheduled for somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday of next week. And, despite having many reasons for preferring a natural birth, I'm kind of okay with this, because my mother-in-law is descending on us next Thursday (evening, I thought. Hah) and I'd really been hoping the baby would be born by then.

(Shall I mention my debut novel is launching next Tuesday? When they calculated out my due date, it seemed like a distant amusement that my baby and my book would come out around the same time. Now the hilarity, it is more intense. Anyhow.)

Okay, so next week would be complicated, but no big deal.

We have a very anxious four year old. The only real babysitter for him is our housemate but he's willing and available. All cool.

The housemate was just selected to sit on a jury next week. Tuesday through Thursday.

Hah hah hah. Hah?

So. What do people think? Am I right in assuming a schedule as I have? I have no idea where 'giant baby in wrong position' fits on the 'get this kid out now' scale. I know hypertension, they gave me about a full day of hospitalized bed rest, tried a token inducement, then scheduled me for a c-section later that evening since my doctor was the on-call doctor. This seems lower priority than that, but if they're worried about the size it also seems weird they'd wait almost a full week.

Ideally, I'll magically go into labor tomorrow. I hear it could happen! But I have this feeling that left to his own devices this guy would stay in until 42+ weeks. Given the failure of my last induction and the general lack of contractions now, I suspect my body is aces at gestation but has no idea what this 'giving birth' thing is.

I cannot change the gender of my unborn child and shouldn't waste my time or energy pretending he won't exist

One of my friends was in a similar situation as you are, with the high up baby coming up huge on ultrasounds. Turns out that she had polyhydramnios, or too much amniotic fluid, and that was both preventing the baby from engaging and making him seem huger than he was. She did get induced, but they started it by doing a small hole in her bag of waters so that it drained slowly. Once it was draining, the baby engaged and the induction went pretty easily.

Sarsaparilla posted:

My newborn (4 weeks now) is starting to have much longer awake periods. She doesn't cry much but I feel like she gets bored. She babbles at me when she's sitting doing nothing for more than three minutes. I mean, there's not much she can DO right now. And there's only so long I can bounce and wiggle and swing and sing to her before I go nuts. How do you entertain your babies?

I don't worry about entertaining the baby much. My philosophy is that they need lots of downtime to quietly just BE. I'm at home all day by myself with the baby, so there's lots of time to fill. I love to read, so I'll read aloud quite a bit. Kids classics (like Swiss Family Robinson in the AM, and Roald Dahl at night), plus whatever I'm reading on the internet, and we listen to audiobooks a lot too. If he's awake and alert, I'll sing whatever pops into my head or tell him about random stuff, like which restaurants have the best tacos, etc. I hate to beat a dead horse, but babywearing plays a big role in "entertaining" too. If you're a baby, "helping" someone make oatmeal or do laundry is fun. If more specific ideas are what you're looking for, this page had a lot of good ideas that my husband liked: http://www.babycenter.com/0_lets-pl...year_1501475.bc

Fire In The Disco posted:

One of my friends was in a similar situation as you are, with the high up baby coming up huge on ultrasounds. Turns out that she had polyhydramnios, or too much amniotic fluid, and that was both preventing the baby from engaging and making him seem huger than he was. She did get induced, but they started it by doing a small hole in her bag of waters so that it drained slowly. Once it was draining, the baby engaged and the induction went pretty easily.

That's really good to hear. I don't know about having too much amniotic fluid for myself. The doctor said I have less fluid this week than previously, but that it's still at a good level. Also, my doctor is reluctant to give out birthing weight estimations because they are often inaccurate. I did get him to finally say something last week and he said the baby looks like he's "well over 8 pounds".

I guess we'll just have to see. I hope if they do induce, it all goes easily.

On another note, my sister is in labor as we speak! She and I were only two days apart in our due dates, her on the 13th, and me on the 15th! Her water broke earlier this morning and she's been admitted. This is her second kid, so it should hopefully move a lot faster than her first labor. I'll be heading over to the hospital later this afternoon once my husband is home from work. So excited for her!

bamzilla posted:

I don't know. You're not even at 39 weeks yet. Wait until you hit 40 weeks and then worry. A lot can happen in a period of a week.

My doctor has been pretty clear from nearly the beginning that I'm not going to be allowed to hit 40 weeks, which is why I care.

Fire In The Disco posted:

One of my friends was in a similar situation as you are, with the high up baby coming up huge on ultrasounds. Turns out that she had polyhydramnios, or too much amniotic fluid, and that was both preventing the baby from engaging and making him seem huger than he was. She did get induced, but they started it by doing a small hole in her bag of waters so that it drained slowly. Once it was draining, the baby engaged and the induction went pretty easily.

That's really interesting. I suppose there's no way to know? I've been wondering how much a big head plays into this, too; I saw on one of the many 'big baby' ultrasounds they could only clearly measure his head-- and his brother and father have enormous heads.

chrysoula posted:

That's really interesting. I suppose there's no way to know? I've been wondering how much a big head plays into this, too; I saw on one of the many 'big baby' ultrasounds they could only clearly measure his head-- and his brother and father have enormous heads.

My husband has a huge head too, so this is a genuine worry for me as well. Let us both hope our baby's heads take after ourselves.

I cannot change the gender of my unborn child and shouldn't waste my time or energy pretending he won't exist

Yeah, I don't know that there's a real way to know for sure if that's the issue, but in her case, they just simply started the induction by puncturing the bag of waters and seeing what happened from there. I think they were prepared to go with the more standard Cervadil/Pitocin induction if that didn't work, but once he was engaged, her labor started on its own.

Bodnoirbabe posted:

My husband has a huge head too, so this is a genuine worry for me as well. Let us both hope our baby's heads take after ourselves.

My husband's head is huge too and during the ultra sound last week, my son's head measured in the 93rd percentile. My husband actually broke my mother-in-law's tailbone on the way out when he was born. I don't want that to happen to me.

My blood pressure was still high today but eventually came down after about an hour at the doctor's office. Good news is I'm 2cm dilated and 70% effaced, so I'm glad I'm progressing. I want to do all of the things to get him moving (brisk walking, sex etc) but since I'm on bed rest, my husband thinks I shouldn't do anything. I see his point but I hate sitting at home doing nothing and just waiting.

Your doctor won't let you go to 40 weeks, next week you're at 39 and 1/2 weeks, no sign of labor, induction failed last time - it sounds like you're having a c-section next week.

Your housemate should have requested an extension on the jury service because they let you defer it. If he's already sitting on a jury, it's too late. You need to find a caregiver now or else let your husband stay with your kid at home while you're in the hospital.

I had an amazing exchange with my mother-in-law yesterday. We went to Babies R Us to pick out a high chair, and we were testing out all the strap systems to see which ones were too hard to latch and unlatch easily.

Me: Wow, I can't believe how many straps and buckles there are on high chairs now. I bet all of these high chairs here have more robust restraint systems than the carseat you had for <my husband>.
M-i-L: Honey, I hate to break it to you, but I didn't have a carseat for <husband>.
Me: Uhhh...what did you do with the baby when you were driving and you didn't have a passenger to hold him for you? Did you just put the lap belt around him in the back seat...oh wait, most cars back then didn't have seatbelts on the back seats. What did you do?
M-i-L: You just laid the baby down on the back seat.
Me: But what about when you hit the brakes? Didn't that make the baby roll onto the floor?
M-i-L: Only sometimes!

Sadly that was not a joke on her part, though she realized how it sounds nowadays and laughed about it. For the record, my husband was born 1974.

Ha, weirdly I had the same conversation with my MIL. She was going on about the good old days before people had travel systems and said "Oh we just used to lay him in his moses basket and put it on the back seat!" I asked if she used to strap it in or anything and she was like "No, I didn't need to do that. We drove slower back then." Mid-70s parenting was very chilled out!

On that topic, I really like this lady's blog: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/ I'm trying to take the chill-the-gently caress-out approach to pregnancy/babies and a lot of her stuff is really reassuring.

netally posted:

Ha, weirdly I had the same conversation with my MIL. She was going on about the good old days before people had travel systems and said "Oh we just used to lay him in his moses basket and put it on the back seat!" I asked if she used to strap it in or anything and she was like "No, I didn't need to do that. We drove slower back then." Mid-70s parenting was very chilled out!

On that topic, I really like this lady's blog: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/ I'm trying to take the chill-the-gently caress-out approach to pregnancy/babies and a lot of her stuff is really reassuring.

Yeah, my MIL didn't even have a basket...just a baby on the backseat (and sometimes on the floor). Yet surprisingly, this same lady told me that I wasn't going to be able to let my baby lay/crawl on the floor of my house, because I have dog hair on my floor, and it's not safe.

I'm striving for laid back/chilled out and old-fashioned, and fortunately, my husband's natural inclination is the same as mine. My aunt on the other hand is constantly emailing me "DID YOU SEE THIS?" with links to stories about how apple juice is full of arsenic, so is organic baby food, and I should only eat full fat yogurt while pregnant because low-fat yogurt makes your baby have asthma 5 years later and ZOMG you don't need vaccines, you just need to take $10 of vitamins a day! I told her yesterday that I wasn't really paying attention to all that because if I did, neither I nor this baby would be allowed to eat anything. Crazy thing is she's a non-practicing RN, so she really should know better about a lot of the things she freaks out about.

Gonna check out that blog. Looks like my kind of thing.

EDIT: Thought I should also add that no matter how ridiculous I think everyone's advice is, I'm still really happy they're thinking about me and are interested in/excited about my pregnancy. I kinda don't have parents, and my grandparents are dead. I've been fairly blase most of my life about my lack of a mother, I'm feeling honestly bothered by it now, for pretty much the first time.

Sorry if that's kinda e/n, but seriously girls, appreciate your mother's concern, even if her advice is misguided.

Mnemosyne fucked around with this message at Feb 18, 2012 around 22:44

So, I managed to burn myself decently at work a week ago and have had to go to the local medical centre every day for dressing changes and monitoring, fun stuff.

During the last week of bandage off/bandage on it has become apparent that I am allergic to every kind of tape they use, even band aids.

Beforehand though, I never had any issue with band aids or other medical sticky things. One nurse has said it's because I'm pretty fair (my burns are on areas which don't see much daylight - stomach & thigh) but I'm not convinced.

Is this just a thing that can happen during pregnancy? Has anyone else suddenly become allergic to various things?

quote:

The system works by pushing the dosing syringe into the flow restrictor, then turning the bottle up-side-down and using the syringe to draw the correct dose. This design is new. A small number of reports were received in which the flow restrictor was pushed into the bottle when inserting the syringe. As a result, the company took the precautionary step of voluntarily recalling the product from wholesalers and retailers. Parents can continue to use Infants’ TYLENOL® provided the flow restrictor at the top of the bottle remains in place. If the flow restrictor is pushed into the bottle, parents and caregivers should not use the product.

iwik posted:

So, I managed to burn myself decently at work a week ago and have had to go to the local medical centre every day for dressing changes and monitoring, fun stuff.

During the last week of bandage off/bandage on it has become apparent that I am allergic to every kind of tape they use, even band aids.

Beforehand though, I never had any issue with band aids or other medical sticky things. One nurse has said it's because I'm pretty fair (my burns are on areas which don't see much daylight - stomach & thigh) but I'm not convinced.

Is this just a thing that can happen during pregnancy? Has anyone else suddenly become allergic to various things?

You can become allergic at any point in your life. Allergies can develop suddenly. I became allergic to peanuts at the age of 13 after having eaten them my entire life up to that point. I became allergic to latex during my second son's pregnancy. I had no problem with it at any point before then.

iwik posted:

So, I managed to burn myself decently at work a week ago and have had to go to the local medical centre every day for dressing changes and monitoring, fun stuff.

During the last week of bandage off/bandage on it has become apparent that I am allergic to every kind of tape they use, even band aids.

Beforehand though, I never had any issue with band aids or other medical sticky things. One nurse has said it's because I'm pretty fair (my burns are on areas which don't see much daylight - stomach & thigh) but I'm not convinced.

Is this just a thing that can happen during pregnancy? Has anyone else suddenly become allergic to various things?

This happened to me and i'm not pregnant. Last year I got a cut on my arm, put a bandage on and it basically caused an allergic reaction that made my whole arm double in size and the swelling ran out almost a foot in every direction from the tape. It was the exact same tape I had used about a year ago with no problems.

So, I went in today and brought my husband so he could participate in any scheduling discussions. At the sizing ultrasound, we discovered the baby was reading at 47th percentile for estimated weight. So perfectly average. Then my blood pressure was so low the nurse took it twice. Then the doctor inspected me and I was 75% effaced, 1cm dilated and the baby was at around station +1.

In other words, the total opposite of last week.

So we scheduled nothing and she sent me home without even making the now traditional secondly weekly appt. Just next Monday, which is a day after my due date.

Still don't have a babysitter other than my husband for jury hours, but the housemate is at least on call for off hours. And the MiL shows up Thursday around noon. Soooo.... Guess we'll see what happens. I was glad to get actual numbers this time.